The World’s Strongest Man
A new comic! (I guess this one’s pretty “out there”, both physically and conceptually…)
Not only that, it’s also comic no. 300 on this site. Yay for that! Also, coming up on December 1st is the 3rd anniversary of optipess.com. It really crept up on me this year, so I’m not sure if there will be another statistics blog post again, but be sure to read the ones from previous years.
I… don’t really get this. Science (and physicists), please come to the rescue.
Oh no, it’s not meant to make any sort of scientific sense, far from it. Um, infact, you’ll maybe have to throw everything you know about physics out the window before reading this one.
To me it looks like the strong man put so much force on the earth below him that he moved the earth out of its orbit. Why that would cause people to float around in the sky, however, I don’t really know :)
Perhaps Kristian should add a “hint” button to some of the more weird comics…
Well, you got the gist of it. I’m not claiming any scientific sense with this one, but going for a more senseless elevator-ish effect. Before making this strip I read up on what would actually happen if the earth went out of its orbit, and it wasn’t pretty, but alas – no weightlessness.
Still, was hoping silliness would win out over science and sense in this case, but um, perhaps it didn’t. :P
According to Newton’s laws, it’s not possible ;)
It seems to me that the strong man spent his whole life getting strong and preparing for this world record breaking moment. And in that moment the earth moved and gravity, and thus lifting weights, is now meaningless. It’s more of a “Congrats, your life’s work has been for nothing” than a scientific occurrence.
It’s supposed to be that the guy was so strong he pushed the earth out of orbit, causing everyone to be weightless (like in a free-falling elevator).
Unfortunately, it doesn’t make scientific sense – in order for everyone to be weightless, the Earth would have to keep moving away from everyone with a large (and constant) acceleration, not a large constant velocity. Sorry, Kristian :)
My thought was that after he threw it back down, it knocked Earth “down” a few feet, like one of those desk toys with the metal balls on strings.
I thought you had read about the deadly gravity/time wave that’s supposed to be hitting earth in 2012.. (Before the doomsday 12-12-12, grow up. Some folks predicts it late 2011) Yeah, read about it some months ago. Have a link and all that too!
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1225/548/Evidence_Builds:_Deadly_Gravity_Wave_Approaching_Earth.html
Yeah, so my thoughts are that if we enter a wave of gravity, instead of being crushed, we will float, so yeh, that’s how I understood today’s comic. (That was a lot of text, yeye.)
Congrats on hitting 300 strips. Keep up the great work!
love the second frame being weighed down when the fella lifts the weights. nice lil detail.
Bad timing, hahaha.
This actually does make some sense. Assuming the earth was completely rigid, if the man put enough force into lifting the weights, he could push away the Earth making everyone (including the atmosphere) “fall off” the Earth. This can be achieved by lifting the weights fast enough, and is due to Newton’s third law “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. To get everyone to lift off the Earth, he would have to accelerate the Earth faster than its gravitational acceleration, which is about 10m/s/. That means he needs to apply more than 6*10^25 N of force. Assuming he lifts, let’s say, 200 kgs (which is a very good overhead press), 2 m, he needs to perform the lift faster than 2*10^{-12} s or so, which is unfortunately faster than the speed of light. Better luck in a different universe!
@Someone: If you haven’t read What If, and I’m almost certain you have, do so. You’ll love it.